


G I L D I

by CalamityCain



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alien Sex, M/M, Mpreg, Nightmares, Non Consensual, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-25 23:12:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalamityCain/pseuds/CalamityCain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In return for the forbidden knowledge of the ancient alien gods, Loki unwittingly becomes a vessel for their spawn – and the seed of their rebirth that will bring destruction to all nine Realms if the monster growing within him is not stopped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Treasure And The Trade

 

> _Like memories in cold decay,_  
>  _Transmissions echoing away,_  
>  _Far from the world of you and I,_  
>  _Where oceans bleed into the sky_  
>  \- The Catalyst (Linkin Park)
> 
>  
> 
>  

_One can bargain with monsters and live. But the price is to carry the monster within you, even as you run._

_Loki remembers running._

_In the farthest reaches of space, he had sought the knowledge of the Ancients. Their unreadable faces were heavy with beard-like tentacles as they spoke telepathically to him in voices as old as time. He had made them offerings of flesh and blood and hair in exquisitely carved vases. The blood and hair was his own. So was the flesh – a tiny slice off each of his fingertips. The sacrifice accepted, the proper oaths fulfilled, Loki had asked and received his boon in return._

_He should have left the metallic temple intact. Instead, something broke in._

_As he was exiting one of the many winding passageways leading to and from the mothership, there was a gleeful cawing in the dark. At once bird-like and mechanical and somehow wet. Then there was the scuttling of small sharp legs._

_It was chasing him._

_Loki saw irony enough in the situation, even as he focused on teleporting to the end of the tunnel. The liar and cheat had been lied and cheated to. Well. He had found himself in worse and stranger situations._

_He successfully reached the exit and almost allowed himself a grin. Then he heard the monster._

_There was a jab in his leather. A pierce in the dark. Loki bit back a cry and reached out for the tentacled betrayer, but it was slippery and lightning-slick. One second it was slipping a needle proboscis in and out of his flesh; next it was in his clothes, molesting him, sucking at his skin with slime-coated suckers. He snarled and blasted off two of its appendages with magic._

_It screeched and spat what seemed like curses in its terrible, garbled tongue. Then, with a wet, whirring, mocking sound, it was gone. He heard it scuttling along the walls into the distance. Silence fell over the lightless corridor._

_And Loki was alone again with a sick feeling of having paid too high a price for his treasure._

 

* * *

 

Four moon turns later, the agony comes.

It attacks him in the bath – a stab out of nowhere that blooms into explosive waves of pain that colours his vision red and makes him heave. The soothing warmth of scented water is gone, replaced by a blanket of coldness.

He grips the edge of the tub and crawls out. The nearest mirror shows him a reflection of a lean, unsullied body. The very same one he has seen for millennia. He runs a hand over his abdomen, touching the smooth immortal skin.

Something touches back.

He gasps. His hand recoils. With growing horror he watches his belly turn a bruised purple and some terrible _thing_ – an alien creature – shifts inside and pushes with terrible, tiny fingers against the skin. The lump swells, bulges, then retreats, leaving only a fading ache in its wake.

Loki cradles the spot that had bulged with life just a second ago. He is with child.

Yes, _child;_ if the word can be used for this monstrosity. _A pierce in the dark…_ the tiniest wounds had been enough for the monster to break past the defenses of his skin and plant its seed. The spawn of the Ancients reside in its chosen surrogate womb. But Loki has neither womb nor a crevice with which to birth it.

If he leaves it be, it will grow to maturity. And then it will tear its way out.

If it escapes him, it will make more of its own.

He recalls the sinister words of the Ancients, who spoke as one in a sonorous, sexless voice. _“Too long have we been in the cold, trickster-child Away from the worship of mortals and immortals alike.”_ The black eternal eyes had bored into his very soul.

_“Our time is coming. We will rise again.”_

He could carry it to term and hide his gestation with glamour enchantments. But to what extent? What sort of creature was this? If he gave birth to it, would it ravage him and feed on him before he had a chance to kill it? Or perhaps, it would eat him from within. At what point does child turn on mother?

A trickster is a gambler by nature, But this is a gamble even Loki cannot make.

Pressing his hands to his stomach, he concentrates and hisses soft spells of destruction. A poisonous green glow flows from his palms and penetrates his skin to subdue the creature inside. Subdue it, and kill it.

He feels the effect of his own magic. The self-inflicted force makes him buckle. He doubles over and falls to his knees. And all the time he feels – hears it fighting him. He fights back with a greater concentration of spellwork, tracing powerful runes on his skin with trembling fingers. The thing inside thrashes. It wails.And it doesn’t stop wailing until he drives his fists into his stomach and screams through gritted teeth. For a second, the creature’s pain and his are one.

Eventually the wailing subsides. Then it ceases entirely. All is still once more. Loki curls up on the floor and wills the pain shredding his insides to stop.

After a long while, it does.


	2. Of Monsters And Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You should know that the movie _Prometheus_ is to blame for this whole parade.

 

> _It's holding me, morphing me_  
>  _And forcing me to strive_  
>  _To be endlessly cold within_  
>  _And dreaming I'm alive_  
>  \- Hysteria (Muse)
> 
>  

 

He tumbles into bed feeling drained, used, fed on. He falls asleep almost immediately.

But his fears are wide awake, and they take solid form in the dark depths of slumber. Something pulls itself from the blackness of his nightmares to slither wetly up his calf. It snakes up his thigh and slides beneath his underclothes.

His eyes fly open. It is too late.

The thing penetrates him, and he cries out. The tentacle will not be dislodged despite his clawing at it and shooting vicious spells from his fingertips. Then another three tentacles shoot out to wrap themselves around his arms. The pain of the probing, ruthless appendage inside him makes his eyeballs throb. Pushed to and fro like a puppet with a sick rocking motion, his mouth hangs open in a soundless scream of protest.

Then his throat, too, is compromised. A fourth tentacle slithers up to push itself down his throat.

Loki gags. He wants to throw up from the ugly sensation of fleshy nubs against his tongue, the sickly-sweet slime staining his lips. But his arms are held in an iron grip; his mouth and tongue silenced; and all the while the creature is prying his legs open, raping him, sliding deeper, deeper, hurting so badly, threatening to split him right open –

He jerks awake with a gasp. Sweat springs from his pores; he is cold all over, shivering, the remnants of the nightmare a phantom crawling sensation. _It's over,_ he tells himself. _It's over. You won. They are trapped in the deepest corners of space, and they can't reach you._

Slowly, his heartbeat returns to normal and he sinks back into the pillows.

 

* * *

 

“You look ill, brother.”

He meets Thor’s scrutiny with a well-masked glance. “I slept ill. I am well enough.”

But the realisation that he cannot long evade more questions as time goes by compels him to leave the dining hall early. His hastily consumed breakfast is heavy in his belly. He feels like throwing up.

Both of them are known for being prodigious eaters. While the thunder god wipes off whole pheasant legs in a series of clean bites and not-so-clean belches, his quieter counterpart polishes the plates clean quietly but with equal speed. Between them they tend to clear an entire spread “in the time it takes to piss,” as Thor’s mortal friends would say. Today Loki’s appetite fails him entirely. He is forced to conjure illusions of pouring juice down his gullet even as other foul liquids threaten to come out of it.

He hopes his appearance will not worsen beyond red-rimmed eyes and a slight pallor. He is pale enough as it is. It has been three days since the nightmare, but even when he is awake a deep, long ache tugs at his insides. How much of the alien spawn’s remnants are still tangled in his guts? He keeps waiting for his body to expel the dead thing. He waits, and waits, and naught happens. And in the lonely hours at night the pain becomes a keening, soundless howl he cannot drown out.

Loki spends many a sleepless hour putting the Ancient magic he learnt into practice. He has been successful with just one spell so far, but it is a most useful one: a double of himself that is as solid as his own flesh – funlike the gossamer illusions he usually conjures – and that continue to behave in a sentient manner even from a distance. Once he sent it out all the way to the Bifrost, right beneath Heimdall’s unwavering gaze, and not once did it falter or behave out of character. The only thing that broke the illusion was its inability to react beyond simple twitches, gestures and basic facial expressions. And even then all these were perfect echoes of his own behaviour.

He wonders if the Ancients had experimented with such things as a form of creation. Were there even now ghosts that wandered between realms – puppet creations that had strayed from their creators’ control?

And were they resigned, in the end, to the fleshly method of gestation and birth when such experiments failed to produce sentient beings?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HTML was a pain...for a non-HTML-savvy person like me. Ugh, it all looks so nice in Microsoft Word. If only there was a way to import the whole thing with minimal formatting....


	3. The Ship That Brings The War

 

> _“They are worse than tremors;_  
>  _they are these terrors._  
>  _And it feels like as if somebody_  
>  _was gripping my throat and squeezing and..."_  
>  \- Sleep (My Chemical Romance)

 

 

He is running again.

Unlike the dread calm of his last sojourn, a tight sensation fills his chest. For, unlike the last time, he _knows_ he is being pursued.

Wet sounds; skittering claws; clicking mandibles. It slithers after him for a length. Then it hides. It waits.

Just as he is reaching the exit, the thing pounces. In midair, the compact body expands and shoots forth a flurry of tentacles that envelope him and push him onto the floor. He burns off three of its appendages with a sizzle of seidr that lights up the corridor with a sickly glow. It is painful, poisonous magic that would melt through to the bones of a lesser creature. But not, it seems, this one.

It comes for him. As it always does.

To fight or to flee? Ever has this been the trickster’s eternal question. To play with fire at the edge of the world. And make the tough choices when it is time to pay the price. More often than not, his shrewd judgment unfailingly saves him. This time it does not.

The boneless limbs lock his arms in a dead hold and tear off his layers of leather. A soap-like secretion oozes out to blind his senses and make him lose grip of his surroundings. It smells, sweetly, of decay.

And then it fills his mouth.

Loki feels burning trails shoot up his throat as his body fights the tentacle gagging him, but it stays firmly lodged in his mouth as if the suckers have taken residence in his very cavities. The other appendages are busy finding their way past his clothes, and teasing his hidden places, and tickling the inside of his thighs and raping him –

 _NO!_ he screams silently.

 _YES,_ they reply; all of them. The pervasive immortal droning speaks to him in many tongues melded into one. The Ancients are witness to this violation, and it appears to sate them.

They penetrate him, finally. They snake inside him and attempt to tear apart his insides, to impregnate not just the place where a womb might be, but every cell of his body. They rape him, suffocate him, trail slick fluids down his naked flesh and use his mouth until he nearly forgets how to breathe. A part of him weeps bile-like tears even as the rest of him burns for retribution.

 _Vain, arrogant god-child, they hiss. Did you think our knowledge was to be sold like cheap mortal trinkets? No; we exact a higher price. That of your everlasting, fertile flesh._ Their triumph is a sibilant song.

 _Congratulations,_ Loki replies. _You have bested a weaver of lies, you withering cheats. Have you then sunk to such vile acts as this?_

The Ancients laugh. _Father of monsters! You should know enough of vile acts. Let our seed form the next monstrosity you carry into the heart of your precious Asgard. It will be a beautiful monster. The most magnificent of them all._

Then the slime-coated limbs overpower him in their stink of decay. The pain and the humiliation ebbs away to be replaced by a heavy sensation; not entirely unpleasant, like drowning without the burning ache for air.

_Let this body be the vessel from which we launch our war._

Loki loses consciousness as his skin and the alien’s fuse to become one.

 

 

_“My son. Why do you cry?”_

Loki jerks awake just as he hears Frigga’s voice ringing through his head. He draws rasping breaths through the sheets, swallowing the fear until the nightmare fades from his widened pupils.

After a minute or so, he hears the Allmother’s psychic call withdraw. The Queen senses trouble in her kingdom. Trouble that begins, predictably enough, with the wayward liar she had taken from her husband’s arms millenia ago and grown to cherish. For a moment she is all hawk-like fierceness; on guard with the dormant Gungnir at hand. It is a fierceness tempered by love.

Loki knows one such as he is unworthy of such love. Nonetheless, he has used it to his advantage before, as he has used others. A hand goes to cradle his belly. He feels a terrible root winding its way into his guts and knows that something lives in him yet. He desires its death. His nightmares, perversely, give it new life.

The power of his dreams – dreams that seep too far into the waking world – are becoming a threat. The next thing Loki learns from the magic of the Ancients is to separate the two.

 

 

* * *

 

The dreams of gods are potent things. Visions become prophecies; prophecies become reality. Loki knows that what he carries is more than nebulous vision. He is, like it or not, gravid with alien spawn. But while he seeks to contain it (how, he does not know yet) he must stop his terrible visitations from tainting the ether of Asgard lest Odin wake from his sleep to sniff it in the air; lest Idunn’s apples grow wrinkled from the darkness pervading the air; and Frigga’s watchful gaze begins to grasp the truth.

The stink of Ancient blood, swimming in the Liesmith’s belly.

Loki drowns the growing bitterness with a draught made specially for such things. According to the knowledge now embedded in his mind, it should mask the growing doom of his night-time visions even as it murders the very real monster mirrored by those visions. Murder seeps down into his stomach. Murder finds its way to the writhing creature inside. He lies on his side and breathes deeply, willing the life inside to go out.

Moments later he is rushing to the bath chamber. His gaping mouth just barely finds the lavatory before he spews blood and bile in a vicious stream, the poison draught regurgitated by the alien child. For a moment all the world is lost in a whirlwind of blinding white.

When he regains his senses, there are tears on his face. He sinks to his knees as the long-contained sobs find him at last. There is no running. The Ancients have chosen, and their chosen is no other than him.

So will Loki, agent of chaos and son of none, bring the downfall of the gods.

_“….No.”_

With a single hiss he denies this destiny. It is true that fate has made of him a destroyer, a harbinger of the end of ends. But not like this. The chaos he weaves will be on his own terms or none at all.

For the hundredth time or so, Loki curls a hand around his growing belly. His fingers are clawed with cold promise.

He knows what he must do.


	4. A Mother Has Many Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (in which I have Frigga-Loki feels)

 

> _Hidden stories to be told_   
>  _These lines in our hands_   
>  _If everything’s already written_   
>  _Don’t tell me how it ends_
> 
> \- Anggun (Year Of The Snake)

 

 

Frigga dreams of many things.

As regent guardian of the golden realm – a bridge between the Allfather who lies in slumber, and the storm-wielding crown prince being groomed to bear the mantle of rulership – her sight stretches almost as far as Odin’s himself. In her deepest sojourns, she can see glimpses of the End and what arrives after: the dark silence, the settling ash of the aftermath, and Gimle, the great hall where those who live on will go to dwell.

Lately she has begun to dream of its hastening. Destiny, her dreams tell her, has taken a twisted new path. One not of this or any world known to the Aesir.

The faint trails of _seidr_ along the corridors leading to Loki’s chambers – trails only one such as she can smell – tells her the answers lie with her trickster son.

He greets her cordially at the door, an old tome in hand.

“I don’t suppose there is something you wish to tell me.”

He smiles, not unkindly. “How arrow-like your words are when not softened by the niceties of court.”

Frigga sighs and walks into the room, her heart secretly soothed by the velvety quiet and mystery that pervades Loki’s quarters. They are in a study that also serves as an antechamber leading to his bedchamber. (In Thor’s room, the antechamber is a miniature armoury with a small anvil and a space for mending his armour; in Balder’s it is dedicated to housing a wide shelf of Alfaricharms, dwarven artifacts and a collection of exotic birds.)

“How has your slumber been lately?” She casts a sharp eye on his pallor, his shadowed eyes. _“Loki.”_ Her voice softens. “I have borne and kept many strange secrets through the millennia. What is one more?”

“One more, mother dear? One whisper of destruction to throw the eternal kingdom into chaos? As if my very nature was not volatile enough.”

“So it is true. What are you harbouring this time, Loki?”

He conjures a vaporous bauble, and casts it aside trivially. “It was a jest. I dabble in dark magics as I do now and then, as you know. Occasionally I suffer the ill effects.”

“No. You have brought something back with you. I know it. “ She gripped one of his hard slender arms. “A taint, a shadow followed you home when you last returned. I was unwise to keep my silence then; but I will not keep it now.” Her other free hand subconsciously curled around an invisible Gungnir, the weapon she wielded in stead of its original owner. Loki’s eyes do not miss this gesture. He knows the Allmother will do what she must to keep the peace – even at the price of war with her beloved stepson.

Then her warring side withdraws as she throws her arms around him instead. He embraces her back. Her sighs against his chest are heavy with things unspoken. _Why?_ They all begin with why. _Why can you not let yourself be loved? Why are the tears of others wasted on you? Why does the light of your brothers’ warmth not reach the chill of your bones?_ Why, why, why.

“You must know better than to cry for me, mother.” He paces ever so slightly before forcing himself to remain still. Fatigue nibbles away at him. He feels thin; stretched.

“Old age is not always guarantee of wisdom, my son.”

“Yes; your husband proves that well enough.”

 _Husband._ Not _Father._ Ever has he rejected all ties to Odin since the truth of his parentage was revealed, even as he accepted with ease Frigga’s maternal presence in his life. The trickster was seen in Asgard less and less often these days. Once he had discovered the secret passageways between worlds, he had begun to shun their presence save for when he chose not to – there were days when he would grace the feast table with his sly wit and quick smile as if nothing had changed.

These were the days Frigga missed. These were the moments in which Thor would spend every second by his brother’s side, keeping his goblet full, telling Loki in a hundred unsubtle ways how much he missed his company.

She puts these whispers and longings aside; now is the time for action, not sentiment. Even if that action is not hers to take.

“If you seek a different kind of wisdom, “ she says, “you may find it in the Vault.”

“The Vault?”

“Asgard’s innermost sanctuary holds the treasures of many kingdoms. There’s a reason it’s so well-guarded.” There is a strange glint in her eyes. “In fact, nothing has escaped its depths for almost five thousand years.”

He would ask her more. But there seems to be an unspoken finality to the conversation. Loki will  not sleep tonight; curiosity will bubble over in his quicksilver mind until it brims over, or until it solidifies into a crystal-clear answer.

Almost impulsively, Frigga reaches up to plant a kiss on her son’s cheek. Rarely is he caught off guard. This is one of those times, and he does not know how to react, so he does nothing.

Then the tender moment is over. She bows her head in goodnight and leaves.

 


	5. Destruction Of The Womb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where it gets a wee bit gory. And possibly a little horrifying.

_~_

_Cut away, clear away_

_Snip away and sever this umbilical residue_

_That’s keeping me from killing you_

_And from pulling you down with me in here_

_I can almost hear you scream_

\- A Perfect Circle (Orestes)

 

 

For the golden kingdom’s most well-guarded chamber, the Vault is not very guarded at all. Loki suspects that his mother has had something to do with this.

He also suspects she knows what he has come here to do – if not the intricate details, then the general intent.

In his right hand a slim knife softly glows. Its blade is wickedly sharp, its handle custom-made to fit the curve of his hand, his every finger. The glow is emitted by the minuscule runes inked along the gleaming blade. Magic for the numbing of flesh, for the stemming of blood.

For there would be much blood before the night was over.

Loki has been here before, but the sheer breadth of the treasury’s collection still manages to astound. Priceless artifacts and irreplaceable gems; talismans of such power that they require ten layers of enchantments over their indestructible cages; fortunes that could buy or destroy whole empires. What arrogance, Loki thinks, to place such pride on thievery. A large part of the Vault was but a hiding place for stolen relics. A fact that makes his presence here especially appropriate.

He walks further in until he can feel the weight of centuries pressing upon him. In his belly the creature uncoils, feeding on him, sucking relentlessly at his core. He has to act now before he is weakened further.

Loki strips to his undergarments. In the quiet dark, he lies down and whispers soothing magic into his flesh and traces runes similar to the ones on the knife into his body. The foetus turns in protest – it senses a threat upon its existence. From within, Loki can hear it scream.

His hand is firm as he sinks the knife in.

Even with the numbing spells, he still gasps when the cold blade parts his skin. With gritted teeth he slices a clean slit in his belly, then parts the skin to make a hole wide enough for the foetus’ exit. It takes every ounce of concentration to ignore the blood pooling copiously around the wound and the pain creeping around the edges of his self-imposed enchantment.

With his left hand he reaches in to grasp the foetus so he can cut it from him. But the thing _retreats_ into his abdomen with a terrible, sucking sound. He bites back a cry as its tiny half-formed digits grab wildly at his innards in an effort to cling to life.

Then it sinks tiny claws into his stomach, and it is Loki’s turn to scream.

The heavy silence prevents sound from travelling too far. But this doesn’t quite ease his fears that someone will come looking for its source and find him with a half-dead alien thing spilling from his body and no plausible way to explain it. Breathing hard, he plants a firm grip on the small slimy body and pulls it out in a process that is every bit as painful as it looks. Everything about it makes him want to curl up and die: the too-smooth flesh still in formation; the stench of alien secretions; the way it struggles far too strongly for something that isn’t even fully formed.

When finally it emerges from his belly, Loki nearly throws up.

A pale bulbous body, the colour of bad milk and bloated dead flesh, writhes in his hand. The little fingers that had dug so stubbornly into his guts are mere stubs yet full of perverse life – like small fat worms that have been spliced in half but retain their movements. Little claws protract and retract from these obscene digits. As for the legs…it appeared to have none. Although there was a faint _wriggling_ movement under the flesh of its nether regions that suggested appendages ready to burst forth at some point in its development.

But worst of all is its head. In place of facial features is a mass of tentacles, slicked with slime and malignant intent. There were faint spots beneath each tentacle that he guessed would bloom into suction cups or some similarly unpleasant devices.

As he raises the knife, the writhing mass parts like flower petals to reveal three beady black eyes in their midst.

Then the tentacles shoot out to smother him.

There is no time to react; the knife clatters to the floor as he attempts to prise the creature from his face. The blades he conjures to stab its flesh are ineffectual, and he knows his magic has lost its potency, at least for now – he needs time to regain his strength.

The sickly sweet stench fills his mouth and nostrils. He feels his senses slipping away and the strength leaving his limbs as he runs out of air.

 _Fool,_ a small dark part of his mind hisses. _Are you a soft-skinned Aesir, or are you born of ice giants?_

He stops struggling. Lets the cold creep in.

Loki feels the ice course through his veins, hardening his skin and the muscle and bone beneath. The form he has suppressed almost unconsciously for years rises to the surface. When he next opens his eyes, they are a bright red.

The grip of the Ancient spawn falters briefly. That is all he needs to pry it off and send an icy blast into the monster’s bulbous belly. A long high screech fades into the dark. Some time passes as he leans limply against a wall, catching his breath. Long after the blue fades from his skin, Loki still hears its echoes bouncing off the walls of the cavernous stronghold.

He knows not where it hides. There is nothing more he can do; that blast had used the last of his reserves. Perspiration breaks out anew on his already sweat-slicked skin. His heartbeat is a quick fluttering thing, shallow and uneven. The fortifying spells are fading, and now the blood flows alarmingly fast from his gaping wound.

But Loki always comes prepared. With trembling hands he draws a threaded needle from the pocket of his discarded tunic and sews the wound shut as best as he can. The stitches are ugly, clumsy. They will have to do for now.

Then he makes the hardest journey of his life: an excruciating, arduous limp – and occasionally crawl – from the heart of the Vault to its exit. Dimly he recalls the knife and garments he left behind. There is also blood, and slime, and goodness knows what other…remnants that the awful surgery had expelled along with the monster. Nothing he can do about it. He supposes the punishment will be even greater than the time he had his tongue burnt and his lips sewn shut for his destructive lies.

The stitches pull at his belly. Damned threads; he cannot seem to escape them.

A sliver of light indicates the journey’s end. Just a few more feet…

He can’t pinpoint the exact moment he falls. But the blackness, when it comes, is nothing short of blissful.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...  
>  so, yes. face-huggers. my ideas are startlingly original aren't they?


	6. Murder On My Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for feeeeeeeels.

~

 

_All these nightmares I once had as a child_

_The morning always came, it came too late_

_What did my mind forget to hide;_

_Could the nightmare be awake?_

\- Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (Tender Sugar)

 

 

Later, what Thor remembers most clearly is the shattering of his mead-horn as it hits the floor and the cold fear that grips his heart. His brother lies unconscious in a corridor, both bloodied and bloodless, with a face like death.

Without a word he rushes forth and scoops Loki into his arms. There is a grievous wound across his abdomen, clumsily sewn up so that the bleeding is just barely staunched.

The trickster’s mouth moves in fits and starts as he briefly awakens. “…alive…it’s…I couldn’t.”

“Shhh. It’s alright. You can tell me about it later.” Thor cradles his brother’s head to his chest as he had not done since the latter was six years old.

“No… _important._ _Kill it._ Have to kill it. It’s alive…”

Thor leans in to try and catch his fading words.

“…will destroy Asgard _. It will destroy everything.”_

Then he falls silent and still. His face seems whiter than ever.

With a heavy heart, Thor carries Loki to the healers’ chambers, wondering what his errant step-sibling has entangled himself in this time – and if he can be saved.

Behind them, the doors to the Vault slide back shut to hide yet sinister secret in its dark and winding womb.

 

 

For Frigga, anxiety sharpens rather than clouds the mind. With her psychic roots spread throughout the kingdom (barred only from a few dark corners), she knows the exact moment when Thor brings his brother to the healing rooms. And she is present to retrieve them before any others can ask unwelcome questions about Loki’s mysterious injuries.

The trickster is in bad shape. His body is thinner than usual and somehow translucent-looking, as if he has been continuously drained over a period. They realise the extent of his masking illusions over the past month or so, and how much strength it has sapped – now, with the glamour stripped away, he looks worn and…”used” is the only word Frigga can think of. Thor frets uselessly as she lays her hands over Loki’s heart and abdomen. He tries to draw some calm from the graceful lines of her face, her serene lashes.

Neither question why there is a wound in his stomach. Or why he is all but unclothed. These are questions for another day. Perhaps Loki might even be able to answer them in words other than lies.

 

 

With each passing day, he grows ever colder – chillier even than his frost giant form. His gaunt, too-still face seems to await the opening of the gates of Niflheim. Thor rarely leaves his side. The duties of the king’s heir are seen to with haste and in between his long, long vigils. His mother helps hold the fort; for this he is deeply grateful.

Sometimes, in the quiet, sleepless moments between fitful naps, Thor lets his lips trace weightless paths across the fine bridge of Loki’s nose and the strong, sleek curve of his cheekbone. Some needy part of him tries to recapture the stolen moments spent in secret places where they would run their hands over each other as if every intimate curve had not already been explored over a hundred years. They were brothers. And then they became more. After a lifetime spent fighting with, then against each other, there were very few boundaries that mattered anymore.

Or so Thor thought. Even in his weakened state, in a sleep that left him as defenseless as a babe, the lie-smith remained wrapped in his own secrets. Thor did not suppose he would ever learn even half of them.

As he pressed his lips gently to his brother’s, Loki drifted to half-consciousness and snatches of a sentence leaked out.

“Must...ll it.” One hand moved restlessly over the blanket. “…kill it. Have to. Only way.”

“Shh, Loki. There will be time enough for talk.”

Loki’s eyes flew open – grew alarmingly wide for a second – before falling shut again. But his rest was disrupted. “ _No time._ I must go…go back. _I must kill it.”_

Thor took his brother’s hand and pressed it firmly. “We will, Loki,” he said without even knowing what he promised. “Together.”

This seemed to give the trickster some semblance of peace. His face slackened and he fell back into slumber.

 

* * *

 

The first thing he does, once he is strong enough to feed himself, is ask for his knives.

Both Thor and Frigga refuse.

Loki feels his knuckles curl till they are white, then blue. “Would you make of me such a weakling?” he hisses when faced with stolid denial for the sixth time. “All I ask for are the humblest weapons, and you would deny me that.”

 “What would you do with them, brother?” Thor asked. “You have not the strength to throw them, nor work magic into them. Leave your battles be; they can wait.”

“And I am telling you this one cannot.”

“Oh. Shall we engage in some sparring practice, then?”

“Don’t be silly. I merely wish for the means defend myself.”

“…Defend yourself…?”

Loki sighs. He bites his lip, uncharacteristically – he never betrays fear in such visible ways. “They come for me in my sleep, sometimes. I…” He shakes his head. “I’m being silly. They are only nightmares." 

The tense exchange is draining him; Loki feels his limbs chill and his cheeks grow pale. Already Thor is pushing him back against the pillows with a deep, concerned frown. Worry has eaten at the edges of the leonine face. Even the gold in his hair appears to have waned from a lack of sun.

“I want the truth.” He lays a heavy hand on Loki’s shoulder. “Tell me what has happened in the past few moons. And what happened in the Vault that night.”

Loki tells him.

 

* * *

 

_12 days later_

 

The evening casts a golden wash on the pale face, softening the gaunt lines. Loki has recovered enough to fire a bow and throw daggers for a short distance. He has even starting working magic again. The familiar shimmer of _seid_ cradled in his brother’s hand warms Thor’s heart.

The same skilled hand flings one last blade – this one conjured from thin air – then rests in the shade of the trees. He takes a bite of Idunn’s restorative golden apples.

For the past hour Thor has been talking him into battling the monster together. “I am king of Asgard now, Loki,” he said several times. “It is my prerogative to defend the kingdom – how could I stay back and watch this attack from afar?”

“Precisely. You are king; send in your armies to aid me,” Loki replies now through gritted teeth.

Thor takes him by the arm and kissed him warmly, drowning out protest. “I am also your brother. And more besides.” The latter pulls away, but he holds on tight, locking his arms around the slim frame that was slowly regaining its muscle. “Another ruler could command from a distance; but I would fight by your side. 

“And die by my side too, I suppose.”

_“Yes.”_

The finality of the answer – and the weight of devotion behind it – seems to still Loki’s tongue. He doesn’t say anything for the longest time, but stands in the other’s embrace, in the arms that used to be a shield against the world and all its nightmares.

One hand slowly curls into the small of Thor’s back. And stays there.

For the briefest moment, he is six years old again.

And he is safe. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _Gildi_  
>  (Old Norse) _= payment due; a tribute, recompense_


End file.
